Patents such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,218,987 and 8,225,727 allow creative images to be tufted into carpet backing. Other devices similar to those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,814,850 and 7,478,605 are also known for such use. While these are all excellent devices for slow speed operation, the applicant desires to rely on a machine and methodology which will improve his prior art techniques and machines.
Also, mending guns have been available to the carpet industry to add stitches of carpet where missed during making carpet. These guns typically have a single needle and some may have yarn feed systems to allow for multiple pile heights such as shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,493, incorporated herein by reference. Other mending guns may have a cutting attachment to be able to cut inserted yarn such as shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,645,249 incorporated herein by reference. However, these guns are designed to be used to tuft through backing (and not the pre-tufted carpet) to fill in where tufting machines have not already introduced yarn.